Day 43 - Cuba 🇨🇺

Cuba is one of the only places I’ve ever been where the reality lives up to the images you’ve seen before. It’s also a complete contradiction. On the one hand, it’s incredibly poor and almost all of the buildings and infrastructure is crumbling. On the other, it’s a vibrant, energetic positive island.

There are severe shortages of every-day goods. In fact, at one point we met someone begging on the street asking not for money, but for soap. On top of this, there’s extremely limited access to information, and internet access is limited to a few public squares. Even the tourist infrastructure is dilapidated. We took an open-top tour bus around Havana and were surprised to find the seats weren’t actually attached to the floor!

Yet at the same time, Cuba is colourful, vibrant and uplifting. I’ve often wondered whether this is because of it’s beautiful, bright, sunny Caribbean setting. It’s a lot deeper than this though. Cuba has a feeling of equity unlike any other country I’ve ever visited. Everyone is relatively poor, but it genuinely feels like everyone is in it together. The warmth and generosity of the people is also unlike almost anywhere else I’ve ever been.

Nothing is easy in Cuba - whether it’s trying to get a snack for lunch, or picking up your pre-booked rental car (that takes a whole day of negotiations). Visiting the supermarket isn’t even straightforward, with rows and rows of empty shelves only a handful of products and hour-long queues. I’m British, but there are limits. 

Booking a hotel isn’t even straightforward. The majority of tourist accommodation is provided by casa particulares which are mostly booked through word of mouth. A casa articular is basically a homestay. This means a visitor you get to meet local people and get a unique glimpse into the life of Cubans. Every Casa particular is unique. 

One particularly wonderful place we stayed was Estudio de arte run by artist Jesus Gastell Soto and his wife Aliuska. Their home is set in the verdant Sierra del Rosario mountains and is packed full of beautiful paintings, sculptures and is framed by beautiful tropical gardens. This is one of the most serene places we’ve ever stayed in.

Summing up Cuba isn’t easy. Cuba is in an undoubtedly difficult place. More than 60 years of isolation have left it crumbling and economically undeveloped. Yet this situation is arguably what has made it such a special and unique place. 

Despite this, my enduring memory of Cuba is of delicious tropical fruits, free-flowing rum-filled daiquiris, intoxicating live music, colourful scenery and wonderful, welcoming people.

Cuba, you’re a crazy mess, but I absolutely love you!

The Havana skyline from the top of the old Bacardi building

A few other posts from our visit to Cuba:

Viñales - Illegal hiking in the "Zona Milita", waterfalls and rum

Day Tripping - Viñales to Cayo Juitas beach

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Viñales - Illegal hiking in the "Zona Milita", waterfalls and rum

October 25th. Joe and I took a sabbatical in 2016 and travelled around Central and South America. This is an extract from the journal kept while on the road. 

Today we got up to the most amazing breakfast at our casa in Viñales. The woman who prepared it gave us much more fruit than usual, and cooked scrambled eggs with an egg yolk cooked in a ring of pepper. It was delicious. She gave us lots of useful tips for the day, like for example it is fine to explore the area without a guide, and that we can organise walks ourselves. She gave us a few handy pointers from the beautiful hand painted map on the wall in the breakfast area.

After hunting down Sandra and Signe (our Danish friends we met in Playa Giron) in Viñales we headed out to Valle de Ancon – a really small village a valley over from Viñales. We parked the car some distance from the village and witnessed 10-20 vultures circling a bloody pile of intestines in a field.

As we arrived it was clear that it was not going to be simple, there were a handful of incredibly persistent guides telling us that we could not walk alone unsupervised with a selection of reasons why this was the case. They told us that it was a ‘Zona Militar’ (military area) that was out of bounds and that there was no way we’d be able to find the way alone.

Not believing a word they were saying and getting increasingly frustrated Joe asked an old lady carrying a plate of minced meat if it was okay to go walking in the area. She told us that it was completely fine and briskly ordered her husband to give us directions. An old man showed us a turning through what appeared to be the garden of a house and pointed us in the direction of a waterfall.

As we were entering the forest cover a man in a bright pink t-shirt ran up behind us asking if we had authorisation to enter the forest. Joe told him the old man said it was okay, and we continued our journey. Hiking unaccompanied is not easy in Viñales!

The path ascended steeply to a ridge where we spotted a number of wild pigs, beautiful orchids and finally a tiny green hummingbird. We followed the ridge down, got slightly lost and eventually stumbled upon an incredibly beautiful lookout spot over the valley.

As we were leaving we bumped into another tour guide who was again insistent that we should not be out there on our own… we ignored him, and not wanting to create a scene in front of his clients we were let off relatively easy.

The path descended into a valley of increasingly thick jungle where we spotted a long winding trail of leafcutter ants. The path got increasingly muddy and hard to follow until we reached a point where we had to cross a log bridge which led us to a beautiful waterfall. We spent some time paddling before heading back.

On the way back we reached what the hustlers had originally claimed was a military checkpoint. Unsurprisingly it was completely deserted now we weren’t in the market for a guided tour!

Relieved to see our car was still where we’d parked it, we drove back down the winding pothole-filled road to a small restaurant where we had an excellent lunch of fried chicken, rice, Cuban vegetables, and for first time in ages avocado and tomatoes.

At sunset, we all jumped in the car again and drove up to a scenic viewpoint with a great view of the view over Viñales. We sipped some cold drinks while watching the sun go down before heading back into Viñales for more drinks.

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The evening progressed into Joe and I being dragged out to the salsa dancing club.  It was a fantastic atmosphere though, set in a smoky courtyard behind the local church and replete with a live band and burlesque dancers.  

Many strange Cuban/Non-Cuban couples filled the night, and it seemed that every person in the place was a character of sorts which led to great people watching.  The hawk-eyed local boys eager to teach some salsa or book you in for the first horse tour the next morning, the group of Swedish girls looking to avoid yet another dance, the awkward Western tourist men shuffling on the dancefloor, the out of town Cuban fisherman who dreams of moving to Paris, and the barman who kept the glasses of neat rum coming.  One of the interesting things of being in a small town like Viñales is that you quickly recognize and see many of the same faces, so despite just arriving there was a sort of homely feel to everything.

Day Tripping - Viñales to Cayo Juitas beach

October 26th. Joe and I took a sabbatical in 2016 and travelled around Central and South America. This is an extract from the journal kept while on the road. 

After a sumptuous breakfast at our Casa, and meeting our new German neighbours we set off for Cayo Juitas. What a drive. It was spectacularly beautiful and the roads were almost entirely mostly empty, but in typical Cuban style, it was back-breakingly difficult.

Around 20 minutes or so into the drive the road started to become increasingly potholed, but this was just the beginning. As the palm tree covered landscape gave way to towering pine trees, the road became utterly treacherous. We were barely able to go faster than 20 miles an hour, and after carefully observing the local driving style realised it was much easier to actually drive off-road alongside the road.

Eventually the landscape (but sadly not the road) flattened out and we drove out onto a long key surrounded on both sides by water. Right at the end of the key, and after what seemed like a half day expedition we finally reached the beach!

It was an expanse of blue sea, white sand and palm trees, with the first hundred meters or so littered with sun loungers and parasols. We purchased some coconuts from the beach bar and then walked to the end of the beach in order to see if there was anywhere more appealing to set up camp. Sun sun loungers aren't really our thing.

We weren't dissapoitned.

The beach gradually gives way to a mangrove forest. We followed a sandy path for 20 minutes or so and finally found a little slither of paradise in which to set up camp. We had our stretch of beach completely to ourselves, and spent the afternoon swimming in the warm, refreshing water and chilling in the hazy sun.

Later on we continued exploring. If you navigate far enough through the mangrove forrest you'll reach a much larger expanse of sandy beach.

It ended up turning into a pretty perfect beach day, but I do feel really sorry for the next owner of our rental car.